Can You Rip Face Playing METAL on a HOLLOWBODY Guitar?

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In the past, good buddy Mr. Glenn Fricker stress-tested a Tele for its performance under ball-crushing, drop A-tuned conditions. Before that there was the Stratocaster test, and both performed relatively well given the circumstances. As a probable eye-opener for some, the Tele really shined for metal lead playing. Dat neck pickup doe.

As Glenn and Spectre Sound wonder how well the past works for modern applications, the next step was to try out a hollowbody for metal. Historically, hollowbodies were designed to amplify naturally through the guitar’s body much like an acoustic, only not as loudly, because pickups and an amplifier would do the rest of the work. Given that, I’d surmise that there’re a whole lotta extra natural resonances and vibrations that could sound like messy ass under high gain hard rock/metal conditions.

Glenn Fricker Hollowbody

“Hollowbody guitars on stage, and hollowpoint bullets at the range. Also, I’m insane. Please help.”

Both a custom 7-string hollowbody by King Blossom Guitars and a traditional jazz-style Eastman with flatwounds were used in the experiment. You need to hear the outcome for yourself, but I’ll just say this: While not optimal, if for some reason you’re strictly a jazz guitarist and you get a wild hair up your ass to do a metal record with only the fiddles you own, you could probably get by fine.

For more Glenn Fricker shenanigans, be sure to visit Spectre Media Group.

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Gear Gods intern Maxwell studied English at Cal Poly Pomona and has since realized life ain’t all about semicolons and syntax. He’s studying audio now, and will probably judge your music taste before your grammar.

Latest comments
  • There’s a huge difference between semi-hollow and full hollow body guitars. And there’s an even huger difference between a DI tracked demo and playing on stage with huge amps behind you, where feedback becomes an issue, especially for hollowbodies.

    All that said, you can convince just about any electric guitar to play any genre you want. I have a 7 string semi-hollow (they’re a lot more common than Glenn thinks) that capital R i p s for death metal type stuff. And i have a Gretsch full hollow body that has only a neck pickup, and while its not quite what you want if you’re playing Meshuggah, it does great for hardcore punk.

    Also worth noting, Ben Weinman’s signature guitar is a semi-hollow. Saw him play it live, and it sounds absolutely savage.

  • killing joke guitarist use a semi hollow guitar, and it sounds heavier than this crap.

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